Next Up

25

The nurse walked up the long flight of stairs inside the library. Morning sunlight streamed through the amber-tinted windows. The whole building had been largely abandoned, with most ransacking nearby homes, stealing what they could carry, and leaving. Some stayed back in the village, enjoying that they could do whatever they wanted with Cassius and its villagers with little to no resistance.

Her footsteps echoed as she took one step at a time, careful not to spill the nectar and tea on her tray.

She quietly glided inside the bedroom door, shutting and locking it behind her. She placed the tray on the bedstand next to Addilynn, sitting next to her. Mixing the concoction of nectar and herbal tea. Slowly, she fed the tube of the funnel down the woman's throat, stopping when it reached her stomach. She placed her index and middle finger on Addilynn's wrist; the pulse was there but faint. "This won't sustain you forever; we just need to hope that he finds whatever he needs and gets it to you soon," the nurse said to herself, pouring the nectar tea into the funnel and watching the liquid drain into her stomach.

"Hey, guys! Look at this!" Zoe yelled, holding up a piece of paper. She walked from the front door to the kitchen to show both of them.

"Huh? What is it?" Colson asked, getting up from the table to look at the paper.

"I guess there are a couple of villagers still left, and they want help with the remaining group members. It was just taped to the front door. If the villagers are thusly using energy...Where's Ivy?"

"She's outback 'training,'" he said, doing visible air quotes.

Zoe glanced out the back door, seeing Ivy hanging upside down from a tree branch in the backyard.

"What are you doing?" Zoe asked, looking up at her.

Sweat dripped from Ivy's face, "Trying to get my energy," she grunted between crunches.

"Oh, well, the villagers want to meet us in a few minutes."

"You guys can go ahead."

"You aren't coming?"

"She's right," Colson said, "Someone should probably watch the house."

Zoe and Colson walked through the shop's doorway near Cassius's outskirts. It resembled an average gas station from the outside. Two pickup trucks sat in the grass outside. One was flipped, and each tire was visibly slashed. The other had several bullet holes in the hood.

The villagers had moved the shelves inside to block any lines of sight from outside. They placed some in the middle of the store, while they put a couple near the large front window.

The small bell above the front door chimed as Colson slowly opened it; they heard the talking from the back of the store instantly die down. A tall man wearing a broad animal fur fedora with earflaps and red tassels going down to his chest and a bright orange sleeveless t-shirt stuck his head out from behind a shelf.

"Oh, good, you made it," he said with a friendly smile. "They said you guys were young, but wow. The rest of us are just discussing...some things. Here, follow me," he disappeared back behind the isle.

Zoe gave Colson a wary look; she reached down to her leg, unsheathing the smaller of her two blades, holding it behind her back. She nodded at Colson for him to continue forward.

"Imagine dressing like that," he muttered under his breath.

Behind the shelf, a group of eight people sat around in a circle. Some sat on chairs and gas cans, others on the floor, and one lay on a shelving deck—looking half asleep.